Everything about our existence—movement and memory, imagination and reproduction, birth and death—is governed by our cells, asserts embryologist Lewis Wolpert; they are the basis of all life in the universe, from the tiniest bacteria to the most complex animals. The author of Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Wolpert here demonstrates how human life derives from a single cell and then grows into a body, an incredibly complex society made up of billions of them.

"As Wolpert explains, cells are incredibly complicated, representing evolution in action.... He provides basic biological information about cell structure, genetics and reproduction, and then discusses the roles cells play in disease, aging, death, reproduction, memory, emotion and much more.... Along the way, Wolpert lightly touches on some hot-button topics like the ethics of stem cell research; when a developing fetus might be considered human; and the ethics of cloning."—Publishers Weekly